Obama to labor: I'm on your side
By: John Maggs December 17, 2010 06:07 PM EST

President Barack Obama tended to his frayed relations with Big Labor on Friday, assuring leaders he won’t short-change workers while negotiating with energized Republicans and reaching out to the business community.

The president met at the White House with a dozen labor leaders, led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, to discuss how they can join forces to promote economic growth and job creation. The meeting comes just days after Obama’s extended huddle with Wall Street and corporate executives, seeking common ground along with ideas to encourage business investment and employment.

Trumka said afterward that the president reaffirmed his support for the labor movement but added that both sides avoided topics of conflict — including the new tax deal Obama brokered with Republicans and signed into law in a Friday afternoon ceremony, a move that unions opposed.

“We didn’t talk about any specific issues that occurred before today,” said Trumka outside the White House, while inside Obama delivered a speech before signing the tax bill. “The president and each one of us have stated our positions on each one of those things.”

Trumka said labor supports the president’s plan for long-term transportation infrastructure spending, and the movement wants him to help states avoid painful budget cuts that could mean more pink slips for public workers. Though Trumka said the meeting with the president was constructive, he was tight-lipped about specific topics Obama and the leaders discussed.

The differences in the arrangements made for the president’s meeting with Big Labor and his Wednesday session with Big Business, however, spoke volumes.

Looking to repair strained relations after a year of trash talk between the White House and Wall Street over health care, executive compensation and financial reform, Obama and his aides set up the meeting with corporate titans as though it were a visit with foreign heads of state. The five-hour session was held at the posh Blair House — the official presidential guest residence — and TV cameras rolled as Obama strolled through the White House gates and crossed Pennsylvania Avenue for the meeting.

“The symbolism, to me, was that he was trying to elevate the importance, first of all, and wanted to make it clear that he was coming out to meet them halfway,” said an aide to one of the CEOs in the meeting.

By contrast, the president met the union heads inside the West Wing, out of public view, and their 90-minute session took place in the Roosevelt Room, an at-hand conference room just outside the Oval Office. The agenda was less formal and didn’t include extensive presentations, as was the case with the CEOs, but the leaders apparently did not feel snubbed.

“The way I would put it is, that there is no outreach needed with labor,” said an aide to one of the union presidents at the meeting. “We know we’re on the same side, so I think it starts out as a friendlier conversation.”

But another top union official whose boss was in attendance said there was an undercurrent of concern beneath the goodwill. “I think we all want to know how we can work together to create jobs without sacrificing the gains we’ve made,” the official said.

Indeed, the tax cut compromise — which Congress passed hours earlier, to the consternation of labor and liberal Democrats — cast a shadow over the meeting. “Our [union] presidents understand that this was a hostage situation, and that a short-term compromise was needed,” said another union official.

And since Election Day, when Republicans captured the House and weakened Democrats’ control of the Senate, unions have watched with alarm as Obama tacked to the right in response — temporarily abandoning his campaign pledge to end tax cuts for the wealthy, working on a South Korea free-trade pact that labor hasn’t embraced and setting aside the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier to organize workplaces.

Going forward, labor wants to hear about the president’s plan for spending cuts, and it wants White House assurances that he will resist Republicans’ probable demands to trim programs that aid the poor, according to one union official.

Union leaders also are looking for White House action on an issue they believe has fallen lower on the president’s agenda: investments in transportation and infrastructure. While Obama occasionally mentions his support for a longer-term, multiyear transportation infrastructure bill, they note, the president has said little about his call for $50 billion in upfront infrastructure spending to help create jobs since Labor Day.

“We want to hear more about that $50 billion,” said a union official.

But Republican lawmakers who campaigned on slashing the federal debt and reigning in government spending have vowed to push for deep budget cuts and fight against another round of taxpayer-funded economic stimulus, arguing that business-friendly tax cuts are more effective in spurring growth. The president has echoed the right’s call for fiscal restraint — particularly since a commission he appointed called for $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next nine years.

Unions are also unclear about the president’s recent enthusiasm for free trade agreements — priorities for Republicans and the business community. Labor is unusually split on the South Korea deal, with the United Auto Workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers supporting it while most other unions and the AFL-CIO are opposed.

But the movement is united against another free-trade pact pending with Colombia. Republican House leaders say they want to move the Colombia pact at roughly the same time as the South Korea deal, effectively creating some linkage between the two. As late as Thursday, the White House told union officials that they had not decided whether to proceed soon on Colombia.